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Friday, January 06, 2017

Dark World of Women Workers in a Modern City

Arup Kumar Sen

[Dr. Arup Kumar Sen works at Serampore College and he can be reached at arupksen@gmail.com]

[Editor's note: On 31st December, new year's eve, Bangalore was witness to wide spread mass-molestation of women. This report on the condition of women garment workers in Bangalore, is a timely reminder that gendered violence is endemic in society, and those at the bottom of the pecking order, are affected by it everyday.]

Bangalore
has earned its fame as the IT capital of India. The headquarters of two IT
giants, Infosys and Wipro, are located in the city. But, a dark side of city
life is seldom discussed in the media. A large percentage of the city’s
population, about 18 percent, live in slums. In addition to the recognized
slums, a large number of poor households live in unrecognized low-income
settlements and urban villages. The story of opulence and that of poverty go
side by side. The recent two day protests by the garment workers in the city
made the dark side of the moon more pronounced.

A
notification was made on February 10, 2016 regarding change in the provisions
of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act. The workers feared that this change
would impact them adversely. Their chief concern was that they would not be
able to withdraw employer’s contribution to the Provident Fund corpus until the
retirement age of 58. The garment workers became apprehensive of the new
Ordinance passed by the Central government as they depend on withdrawals from
the Provident Fund for payment of house rent and school fees of children, and
for health-related emergencies and other financial emergencies. This led to the
mass walk-out of “footloose” garment workers from their factories and participation
in a series of spontaneous demonstrations on April 18-19, 2016, in various
parts of Bangalore. It is reported that at least 50000 garment workers, most of
whom were women, participated in the protests. The workers interviewed by an
investigating team stated that peaceful protests turned violent on April 19 due
to police brutality on women workers on day-one. Reportedly, male police
officers started raining blows on the women workers, in spite of their repeated
assurances that they intended to protest peacefully. Based on personal
interviews with garment workers, the investigating team observed that “the
level of brutality exhibited by the police throughout the protest as well as in
the following weeks was due to a calculated effort by the police to create an
atmosphere of fear and intimidation amongst the workers.”1

In fact,
fear is very much a part of everyday life of garment workers in Bangalore.
There are about 500000 garment workers in the city of Bangalore, working in
big, small and medium-sized factories and producing for global giants including
Wal-Mart, TESCO and Primark. The industry employs mainly women workers, who
constitute around ninety per cent of the total workforce. Deprived of their
right to associate or unionize due to intimidation and reprisals by management,
the space for articulation of protest against workplace harassment and low
payment is very limited.2 To put it in the words of one woman
worker, “They treat us like dogs”. There are instances of women who committed
suicide to evade their oppression in everyday life. Women aged between 18 and
45 are often found running towards the factory gate to reach just on time.
Otherwise, they face harassment to get permission to work for the day. In a
particular case, a woman worker crashed in the factory gate and got severely
injured. The security men present at the gate did not lift her. She was saved
by her co-workers. In another case, a pregnant woman started feeling unwell
after reporting for duty. She appealed to management for her release at around
10-10.30 am. She was granted leave at around 12.30. Finally, they let her off
at 1pm. With the cooperation of a younger woman, she got into an auto and
became unconscious there after giving birth to a baby, who died for lack of
care. A study of PUCL, Karnataka, in collaboration with other human rights
organizations, bears testimony to multiple oppressions suffered by women
garment workers in Bangalore. The story of oppression as documented in the PUCL
Report is summarized below:

Gate checking
in the factory finishes at 9.30 AM. On days when one is late, she has to stand
at the security check for an hour or so till the HR manager permits her to
enter and start work. On days like this, she has to make up the lost one hour
by forgoing her lunch time or staying after working hours to finish the given
target for the day. The women workers also face sexual harassments including
verbal abuse of a sexual nature. The male supervisors, floor in-charges and
managers call them by abusive names, such as dog, pig, monkey, ‘loose’ etc. and
cast aspersions on their character. The women do not report about sexual
harassments to higher authorities in the fear that they would lose their
jobs. Being allowed limited toilet
breaks, workers are forced to reduce their consumption of water considerably,
and many women faint inside the factory due to dehydration. When a woman goes
to the toilet, someone follows her to ensure that she does not waste time. No
concessions are given to women workers during advanced stages of pregnancy. It
is difficult to withstand such mental stress and agony. It is a common sight to
find many women crying and weeping in the factory. However, they are not in a
position to give farewell to this dirty world of the factory, as most of the women
come from a modest financial background, and they are either the sole
breadwinner of their families or their income constitutes a substantial part of
their family income.3

The future
struggles of workers in the city of Bangalore should focus on minimum wages and
other basic necessities for the survival of “footloose” workers. But, the
multiple oppressions faced by women garment workers in their everyday life must
be an organic part of the struggles for ensuring their right to live with
dignity.

Notes:

1.For the protests and their aftermath,
see People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), Karnataka, and Women against
Sexual Violence and State Repression, Karnataka, Bangalore Garment Workers’ Protest Demonstration: A Preliminary
Fact-finding Report, 2016.

2.PUCL, Karnataka, NLSIU, Bangalore, Vimochana,
Alternative Law Forum(ALF), Concern-IISC, Manthan Law and Garments Mahila
Karmikara Munnade, “Production of
Torture”: A Study on Working Conditions including work place harassments faced by Women Garment
Workers in Bangalore and other districts.